Can Mobile Field Service be used with iOS 11?

Owned by Kyle Niekamp
12 07, 2018

Issue/Symptom/Question

Can Mobile Field Service be used with iOS 11?

Environment

Apple iPad

Mobile Field Service Application

Resolution/Fix/Answer

Yes, iOS 11 has successfully been rolled out to Mobile Field Services users. There is one known iPad Setting related issue, for more information on that and how to prevent the issue, please see below. 


The issue has been fixed as of MFS 21.1.2, but if a version prior to 21.1.2 is used, read the following:

As a user of Penta’s MFS application, we would like to inform you of an issue identified with the release of Smart Punctuation in Apple’s iOS 11 update.  The Smart Punctuation feature automatically converts straight quotes to typographic, curly ones, and double hyphens to an em-dash.  While this feature makes it easier to type more grammatically correct on the iPad keyboard, these curly quotes and em-dash characters are considered special characters and are converted from a single character within the MFS application to multiple characters in the Oracle database.  This conversion may lead to some entries becoming longer than the maximum length allowed in the Oracle database field which can cause tickets not to complete submission.

We advise all technicians utilizing the MFS application to make the following change on their device.

  • Go to Settings>General>Keyboard and slide the Smart Punctuation option to the off position.